


Wisdom Always Chooses These Black Eyes and These Bruises

by audreycritter



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Arguments, Cussing, Family Fights, Gen, Hot Tempers, Injury, Making Up, Platonic Cuddling, father-son unbonding and then bonding, frustrating situations where nobody is the real bad guy or they both are, shouting, sometimes batdad and robinson are mean to each other, sometimes they need each other, tw: cruelty, tw: physical pain, tw: severe injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 22:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17211626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: After a severe, life-changing injury, Dick and Bruce have an epic fight and then fall back together.Sometimes, family hurts you the most, but that doesn't stop how much you need them.





	Wisdom Always Chooses These Black Eyes and These Bruises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jerseydevious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/gifts).



> title from relient k's "Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet"

The house was so quiet that the heaviness of it wrapped around Dick’s chest like thick ropes, and tightened. He was sick of it, was sick of creeping around the house where even Damian went on silent tiptoe the past several days.

He kept the milkshakes level in his hands while he turned the knob and pushed the door open with one foot.

“Hey,” he said into the shadows. The lump on the bed didn’t move. He flicked on the lights and there was an irritated huff from beneath the covers.

Dick crossed the carpet and set the milkshakes on the bedside table, irritation scrabbling up his throat like poison vines. He swallowed them down so hard it hurt. He could do this. He could be gentle and empathetic.

“I brought you a strawberry chocolate chip shake,” Dick said, grabbing a dusty book from the bedside. He blew it off, not wanting to think about what the dust said about the distance Alfred was keeping outside of necessary contact. He curled the soft binding and poked Bruce with it.

“Stop,” came the growl that was barely a word.

“C’mon, B,” Dick cajoled. “You can’t mope all the time. Sit up and have a shake with me.”

He knew the second he said it that mope was the wrong word. He could tell by the way Bruce stiffened under the mountain of blankets. The childish rebuttal he was hoping for didn’t spill out of Bruce’s clenched teeth. There was merely silence.

“Bruce,” Dick said, pleading a little. “You’re scaring Damian.”

Nothing.

“Mope was the wrong thing to say, okay. You’re allowed to mope all you want. Just do it with me instead, okay?”

Nothing.

Dick ran a hand through his hair and bit back an annoyed sigh.

“Boss Man. Up. Or I’ll get Jason in here and take him up on his bet that you can’t.”

It was a lie. Jason hasn’t said anything of the sort— Jason had barely spoken in the past week, after that first day when he’d yelled and thrown up and yelled some more. It was also maybe just too close to cruel but Dick felt the vines climbing out of his mouth and pressing against those thick, corded ropes that trapped his ribs.

“Fine,” Bruce said.

“What— no. No, it’s not fine, would you—” Dick shoved at the shoulder closest with the book again. “Sit up and look at me, dammit!”

More silence.

Then, low and rasped like tumbling gravel at the bottom of a river: “No.”

Dick sucked in a breath and willed himself to calm down.

“Please look at me. Can you try, at least? Try to drink a milkshake with me?”

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

“I get it,” Dick said, closing his eyes. “You’re angry. I’d be angry, too, I  _am_  angry, I’m fucking pissed for you. You can tell me that. I’m right here, I’ll listen to whatever you need to say to get it off your chest.”

Silence.

He poked with the book a third time.

“Bruce,” he sing-songed. “B-man. Brucester. Did you fall asleep?”

The shoulder inched away from his poking reach.

Dick exhaled loudly and rocked back on his ankles. He laced his fingers behind his head and tried inhaling, counting, and he lost it somewhere around six when Bruce let out a low, incomprehensible growl of a syllable.

“Godammit, Bruce. Would you stop? Stop shutting me out.” Dick snapped. He could hear his voice rising with his waving arms and he didn’t care anymore. “I know it sucks, I know you’re mad, but you lost your leg, not your fucking heart. You can’t just shut down like this! I’m not asking you to get up and run laps, just  _sit halfway up in the fucking bed and have a milkshake with me!_  You could at least try!”

There was silence in the room as his words died away, muffled out of any echo by the thick curtains.

The vines looped around his neck now, choking every ounce of fury out of him. When Bruce still didn’t respond, Dick’s answer was tipping over from shouting to outright screaming.

“I’m trying to help you, you asshole!”

Arguing with Bruce was like fighting a brick wall until the instant the wall became a raging, rabid bear. The breath it changed was so sudden Dick took a half step back, because Bruce flipped— finally, finally facing him— and propped himself up on one elbow. His stony face was already carved into something ugly and mean.

“I didn’t ask for your help!” he snarled, one blanket clutched in his fist as if to still it. “I didn’t  _ask_  you to come help me.”

“Maybe that’s the goddamn problem!” Dick yelled back. “Alfred had to call me because you have your head so far up your ass you can’t see that you’re scaring your kids. You’d rather just hide in here feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Alfred should mind his own damn business.” Bruce shoved further up on his elbow, but he still wasn’t eye level with Dick, not even on the high bed.

“You  _are_  his business and that’s why he fucking called me! We care about you, even if that’s impossible for you to understand. Nobody wants you to rot away in here except  _you_. And maybe if you’d called for my help to begin with you wouldn’t even be in this position!”

“What position?” Bruce hissed. He flipped back the covers and Dick stared, and the blood drained from his face before he could control himself, and he nearly puked. The thought of a strawberry milkshake now made his stomach turn.

One leg was bruised and scraped all the way up the bare shin, and the other was simply not there below the knee. It ended in a swath of gray, soaked bandages that looked yellowish and wet in spots. Bruising was black-blue all the way up the thigh and after another second, Dick had to tear his eyes away and glare at the wall behind Bruce.

“What  _position_?” Bruce hissed again. “Invalid? Amputee? Go on. Say it Dick. Say exactly what you mean. I don’t want your help now, I didn’t want it then. I wanted to keep you away from the situation with Killer Croc and I did  _exactly_  that.”

Dick blinked back tears, hot and rebellious as they spilled onto his cheeks.

“You can’t keep protecting me just because you get scared,” Dick said, trying to keep his voice even. It was a losing battle from the second he opened his mouth again. “I’m completely capable of taking care of myself so stop making that call for me. I’m not a kid.”

“Oh, really? But you still think you can just waltz in here with milkshakes and bad jokes and fix this. And you need to fix me, don’t you, Dick, because I’m not good enough if I’m broken. I’m already a worse father, according to you.”

“You…fucking…asshole,” Dick gasped. “You…you’re so convinced you ruin everyone’s lives that guess what? You’re a self fulfilling prophecy, you incredible son of a bitch. You did ruin my day and I’m having second thoughts about the last couple years, too. It’s no wonder someone finally got the upperhand and tore off your leg; I bet it made him sick to the stomach, too, because it was yours and you’ve just got poison in your blood, don’t you? Don’t bother calling. I won’t answer.”

Dick slammed the door on the way out.

He stomped down the stairs, muttered under his breath while he scribbled a  _call me_  note to Damian, and yanked his jacket on while blowing by Alfred toward the garage.

There was a pang of regret for the older man, whose face looked worn and more tired than it had in a while, but really that was Bruce’s fault and Bruce’s mess.

“Don’t ask me to come back,” Dick warned, barely slowing. “I’m done with him. I’m just done.”

He broke the speed limit before he was out of the long drive.

* * *

Clark looked at him from across the beaten kitchen table, his hands clasped together.

“How long ago?”

“Two days,” Dick said, resisting the urge to squirm.

That was the weird thing about talking to Clark. He looked right at you, didn’t tinker and work with things while you were talking. Sometimes it made it easier. It was comforting seeing evidence that you had his full attention.

Other times, it made it harder. There was no distraction. No distraction from things like,

“And you said  _what_  to him?”

“I know, I know!” Dick moaned, his face in his hands. “Just…don’t, okay?”

Face in his hands was, as it turned out, far preferable to looking Superman straight on while his eyebrows pinched down in that quizzically disappointed expression.

“I’m sorry,” Clark said. “I know you know. I’m just…Dick, you have to imagine how he’s feeling right now.”

“With his entire half an emotion, probably pretty shitty,” Dick mumbled, a spark of acid in his tone. “But he does that all without my help.”

“But…” Clark said, drawing out the syllable.

“I don’t need to make it worse,” Dick sighed. “I get it. I know.”

“You’re just confirming it for him,” Clark said. “Don’t get me wrong. I know he can be…”

“A fucking idiot.”

“…difficult,” he finished, with an acknowledging, wry half smile. “And also that. It’s okay if you need some space. It sounds like he was being pretty cruel, too, and that’s not exactly fair to you.”

“So do I go apologize? Or wait a week? Wait for him to call?” Dick’s voice broke into a hysteric, short laugh on the last one. “I mean. We both know I’d be waiting until hell freezes over.”

“Because you told him not to call you,” Clark reminded him gently. “And you know how literal he is about things like that.”

“Yeah,” Dick sighed. “I might be changing my mind about that beer.”

Clark wordlessly got up and opened the fridge and withdrew his hand with a glass bottle. He popped the cap off with his thumb, which Dick thought was one of those showy-off things that still just made him remember how much he loved Clark. Someone else could have made it look like a really obnoxious trick, but it looked natural on Clark.

“This is a northeastern brew,” Clark said, setting it down. “I picked it up at a place in Boston. Let me know if you don’t like it.”

“It’s fine,” Dick said. He was barely going to taste it anyway. His hand closed around the glass and Clark didn’t let go.

“You drink this, you sleep on my couch tonight.”

“Aw, Clark. It’s one beer.”

The grip did not relent.

“Alright, fine,” Dick grumbled. He took a swig as soon as it was free.

“There’s a sleeper sofa in the office now. Jon won’t bother you.”

“So. What do I do? Go back tomorrow? Give him space first?” Dick picked at the matte paper label on the bottle, now beading with condensation.

“I think you need to do what you know in your gut you need to do,” Clark said. “You’ve got good instincts, Dick. You know him better than anyone.”

Dick wanted to swear because he hated that, hated when Superman gave him that fatherly smile of reassurance and the ‘I know you’ll do the right thing, kiddo,’ because it made it impossible to disappoint him. There was no shirking the right move with the excuse, “But Superman told me…” There was no way to shift the blame.

“Fine,” Dick muttered. He gulped beer down and let the bitter aftertaste swill in his mouth, bubbling against his teeth.

“I’m sorry, Dick,” Clark said earnestly. “I know you’re hurting, too. It’s not fair to anyone.”

Dick nodded and kept his head down. He stared at the worn grooves and crayon marks on the table so Clark wouldn’t see him nearly cry.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “It isn’t fair.”

“I’ll get some pizza,” Clark said. “You can figure out what to do in the morning.”

* * *

Dick didn’t last until the morning. He figured that tossing and turning on the sleeper sofa until 3 AM counted as ‘sleeping off’ his single beer. He suspected Clark just wanted to make him feel taken care of— he was like that sometimes when Bruce was being especially Bruce-ish.

In any case, Clark must have heard him folding the sofa back up and folding the blankets and unfolding his jeans to slip them back on. He didn’t come stop him when Dick slithered out the office window and crept down the building on the fire escapes.

Dawn was breaking pale gold and pink on the horizon when he pulled his cycle into the manor garage hours later. He shut off the engine and, with a weight growing steadily denser in his gut, padded silently through the house and toward Bruce’s room.

The lump on the bed was in nearly the same place. The heaviness that had been ballooning the entire trip burst now and Dick was crying before he’d even reached the bed. He paused at the edge of the mattress.

“Bruce,” he said, raggedly. “Bruce, are you awake?”

“Yes.”

Dick climbed onto the bed without waiting for further invitation. He arched to climb over Bruce, careful not to jostle him, and settled on the covers facing him in the dim light. Someone had left a lamp on across the room.

“You’re crying,” Bruce said softly. “What’s wrong?”

“‘m an idiot,” Dick said, gulping for air and choking on the words. “I’m sorry, Bruce, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have…I shouldn’t have said all of that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It was true,” Bruce said, gently. A thumb reached out and brushed a tear off Dick’s cheek.

“It wasn’t— fuck. No. No, B, I was mad and scared and I don’t know how to help you. It wasn’t okay.”

Bruce’s lips parted and then he seemed to think better of whatever he was going to say. His lips were chapped and his face was marred with deep circles under his eyes, like for all the time he’d been in bed he hadn’t slept.

“I’m sorry, too,” he finally said, in a tone like sandpaper. It wore away at the parts of Dick already raw and he winced.

“It’s okay,” Dick said, scooting closer so he could press his forehead against Bruce’s chest. “This doesn’t hurt you, does it?”

There was silence.

“B?”

“No,” Bruce managed, in a voice so choked and hushed that Dick knew he was trying not to weep. His second attempt was a bit clearer. “No, it’s fine.”

“It does hurt though, doesn’t it.”

“No, it’s…” Bruce trailed off. “Yes. But it’ll be alright.”

An arm slipped around Dick’s shoulders and tugged him a bit closer, and then the hold tightened even more and he could feel Bruce shaking.

“I’m so sorry, B. It’s just fucking unfair.”

There was a shake of Bruce head against his hair and Dick exhaled at the thought that even now Bruce would try to argue that. He settled instead for slipping an arm around Bruce in return and squeezing.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce whispered into Dick’s hair. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey,” Dick said, hugging. “It’s okay. You’re allowed to be pissed and sad about this. I wasn’t wrong about that.”

There was a dry gulp of a sob in the quiet room. Dick realized they’d both been whispering, it seemed so loud.

“Fuck,” Bruce exhaled.

He stilled and Dick pulled back to look at his face, and then he was wrestling out of the arm that clutched at him and sitting up on his knees and tapping Bruce’s cheek.

“B. Bruce. B, you gotta breathe. Come on.”

There was a rough nod and Bruce’s eyes pinched shut, tears in the crow’s feet in the corners.

Another ten seconds and then twenty and then there was a hoarse intake of air and a ragged exhale, and then another. Dick kept Bruce’s hand pressed to his chest the whole time, hoping Bruce picked up on his even breathing and not the wild thudding of his heart.

“Goddammit,” Bruce sobbed, when he had enough air in his lungs. His hand against Dick’s chest was shaking and his other hand clawed uselessly at the blankets and his missing leg beneath them. “I can’t…I can’t… _fucking hell_.”

“What do you need? What can I get?” Dick asked frantically, scanning the dresser and bedside tables.

Bruce shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said, between gritted teeth.

His hand dropped to clutch and twist in the blankets while he panted and Dick knelt beside him, feeling helpless while he tangled his fingers in Bruce’s hair to give him some kind of anchor.

Finally, after an eternity, Bruce sagged limp into the bed and pressed his face into a pillow while he groaned.

Dick, tentatively, laid back down beside him and stared at him.

“Muscle cramps,” Bruce said, not looking at him. “The nerve endings are…well. Wrong signals. Just have to…the painkillers aren’t…”

“How often?” Dick asked, his mouth dry.

“A few times a day, still. Leslie said they should lessen in frequency eventually.”

“Eventually,” Dick echoed. He wanted to cry again. “B.”

“It’s okay, Dickie,” Bruce said, hoarse but gentle and kind. How he pulled it out in those moments Dick never could figure out. “I’ll be alright.”

He sounded exhausted.

Dick slid until he was tucked up against Bruce again and swallowed back the ache in his throat.

“I love you, Bruce. I know you get weird about it, but I do. Whatever you need, say the word. I’m staying for a while.”

Bruce’s arms encircled him again.

“I don’t deserve you, chum.”

Dick had to bite back the argument that nearly flew out of him, but he managed to stop it for now.

“You think you can sleep?” Dick asked. Bruce’s hold already felt slack and weighty with drifting.

“Hnn,” Bruce said, his breath a hot whuff of affirmation on Dick’s forehead. Chapped lips pressed a kiss there. “I’ll try.”

Bruce breathing grew deep and steady and Dick turned his head so his ear was against Bruce’s ribs. He listened to the  _ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump_  of Bruce’s heartbeat, and let the selfish gratitude wash over him.

A missing leg wouldn’t keep Bruce down, and Bruce was  _alive_.

Alive was enough for Dick.

He sniffled despite himself.

“Sweetheart?” Bruce said, so quietly and gently Dick thought for a second he’d imagined it. He was slightly jostled. “You alright?”

“Don’t give up, okay?” Dick sniffed again. He kept his ear right where it was.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Bruce said. “You missed Alfred yelling at me for going to the bathroom and back on my own.”

“You didn’t,” Dick’s laugh was shaky. “B.”

“I said he already yelled at me,” Bruce defended in a sleepy whisper. “I got the message.”

“Thank you for being you,” Dick said, a bubble of hope expanding in his own chest. “I mean that. Don’t grumble at me. You’re the best man I’ve ever known. I’m glad you’re you, even if you aren’t.”

“Dick, chum, I’m trying to sleep,” Bruce said roughly.

“Sweet dreams, B. I’ll be here when you wake up and we can both apologize to Alfred.”

Bruce nodded and Dick drifted off, still listening to the reassuring beat of Bruce’s beating heart.


End file.
